


wanna be missed

by downtothewire



Series: neighbors [2]
Category: Marvel, Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 00:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtothewire/pseuds/downtothewire
Summary: A Karolina and Nico Neighbors AUKarolina just moved in to the apartment next door to Nico Minoru. She is at first fascinated by the girl, then infatuated, then crushing hard. The only problem is her neighbor is having a hard time dealing with her own sexuality leaving Karolina in a limbo waiting for the girl she's falling for to come around.





	wanna be missed

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, Guys! This is the story from my Neighbors AU but now from Karolina's perspective. I hope you enjoy. You can read either or before or after, but I guess while I get the other chapters for Karolina's version out I would start with Nico haha
> 
> The title is from Hayley Kiyoko's song from expectations. I was listening to it before writing this, and I felt it fit.

Karolina can't believe she's doing this to herself again. How long is it going to take her to learn that you can't change people. They'll just keep breaking your heart. They'll keep chipping away at it as much as they can until it's completely shattered - like a cruel sculptor. That's how Karolina feels right now, like a statue with its pieces fallen off, broken by heartache and time.

She can't blame Nico, though, she brought this on herself. She was aware whatever anger she felt was directed at herself. She was the one who kept breaking her own heart. She saw the warning signs, but chose to ignore them and continue blindly following her desires. It was hard not to when she now finds herself falling face first off a cliff for this girl. She doesn't understand this need. She doesn't think she's ever felt this strong of a magnetic pull towards someone before. It's not like Nico was the first girl she liked or even dated, not that she ever dated Nico for that matter - she guessed. But something kept bringing her back, making her eyes linger, her breath hitch, forcing her damn hand to keep knocking on that damn door.

It all started when Karolina moved in. Being from LA she had lived her entire life at her parents' house - even when she went to college. Now, however, she was finally moving out. She was free to do as she desired. To decorate her house how she wanted, to have whoever she wanted over at whatever times she well pleased. It felt liberating. It was like part of her was still in the closet under her parents strict rules and now she got to be unapologetically herself - and she was going to enjoy every minute of it.

She saw Gert struggling to open Karolina's new front door, box in hand, as she grabbed another box from the car. She adjusted the box in her hands and went to help Gert. However, when she saw a girl dressed all in black peeking out from the apartment next door towards her friend, she changed her course. She assumed the girl was her neighbor and due to her hidden demeanor, Karolina assumed this would probably one of the few chances she'd have to introduce herself.

"You must be my neighbor," Karolina told her with a smile as she saw her staring at Gert. Was she interested?

Nico startled, and immediately Karolina felt embarrassed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay. I'm Nico," The girl introduced herself.

Karolina thought she was pretty. Gorgeous actually. Her tongue was already tying and she knew anything she said from the point forward was going to lead this to be a disaster of an interaction.

"Karolina," she settled on. Nico extended her hand to Karolina, and though Karolina wanted to shake it, the box resting on her hands stopped her. "I'd shake your hand, but they're kind of busy right now." She nodded her head to indicate it.

Nico blushed and retracted her hand. Karolina really hated having so much stuff right now. If she had one less box, this wouldn't have been a problem. Why was she so awkward?

"Right. Sorry," Nico said.

"It's okay," Karolina answered with a kind smile in an attempt to soothe the other girl, "So, I guess I'll be seeing you around?"

"Yeah," Nico only offered back.

Karolina had to stop this and try another time, because honestly nothing good was going to come from this with how flustered both of them were. Karolina didn't want another bad impression of herself on a cute girl, but she couldn't stop herself.

"By the way, her name's Gert if you wanna talk to her, but fair warning: she has this whole thing going on with one guy for a while now. They're kind of complicated." There it was. Karolina ruined the interaction. She knew she would.

"Oh! No, that's not why-- I'm not-- I wasn't looking like that," A flustered Nico blabbered. Karolina hated herself right now.

"Oh, I'm sorry… I just assumed--"

Nico interrupts her, "It's okay. I don't mind. I just wasn't looking like that."

Karolina exhaled a light nervous laugh, "Okay, well, before I make this worst, I'm just gonna go put this indoors. I'll see you around."

She had to leave now before she made this any worse. She'd fix this later. Karolina walked away and she could feel Nico's eyes on her as she moved into her new apartment. The girl must have thought she was so weird. who makes that kind of comment as soon as they meet someone? Why did she just assume that about her? Karolina felt the nickname her friends gave her as a 'useless lesbian' was more accurate everyday.

Karolina had always been a creature of summer. She enjoyed the sunshine, the ocean, and the outdoors. She didn't love the heat, but she definitely liked it better than the cold. So, now that summer was here and she had her own backyard, she was just happy to lay out in the sun and tan. She wasn't a fan, however, of how hyperactive her brain seemed to be at times while she tanned. Right now, her mind was fully focusing on the fact that less than one hundred meters away a really cute girl was sitting alone in her house. Karolina couldn't help herself, she stood and knocked at Nico's door under the false pretense of being bored.

She only had to wait a couple of moments before the girl was opening it. She had been out long enough to know when someone was staring at her and Nico was definitely staring at her. Karolina was glad Nico was. The girl looked her up and down nervously.

"Hey," she said stepping closer to the shorter girl and finally feeling the draft coming from the apartment, "Oh, God, it's freezing in here."

"Hm?" the girl says still distracted by the taller girl - bringing a smirk to Karolina's lips.

"It's freezing in here. Are you wearing a hoodie? It's summer."

Nico shrugged, "It's pretty cold in here."

"Wanna come hang outside?" Karolina sputtered - berating herself for how fast it left her mouth without her permission.

"Oh, no, thank you. I don't really care much for sunshine," Nico excused and Karolina could see by her pale complexion. She had to try harder still, however.

"You don't have to be in the sun, you can just read on the porch. I just wanted some company, if you don't mind. I'm getting kind of bored," Karolina explained.

"Oh, okay. Yeah. Let me just change into something more… weather adjacent." Karolina nodded at the girl, but her brain was asking her the question of the choice of the phrasing: 'weather adjacent'. She found it cute. She let Nico go and went back to her previous position lying on the lawn chair.

Karolina felt like she'd been laying there forever waiting for Nico, when she finally heard the door to the backyard opening and shutting. She sat up.

"You took your ti--" Karolina couldn't finish her sentence, because Nico walked out of the house and Karolina could see so much skin beneath her mesh top. Karolina could see so much legs with her short shorts. Karolina's brain was short circuiting as she looked at Nico, but her mouth seemed to be working just fine because before she knew it, it said: "you look really good." Karolina found that her mouth's choice to emphasize the word really was uncalled for.

Karolina flushed at her comment, but soon recovered when she saw that Nico was blushing too.

"Thanks," Nico told her and went to sit on the patio furniture with her book in hand. Karolina could feel Nico's eyes lingering on her as she pretended to read her book. She was enjoying being a distraction to Nico honestly.

"Hey," Nico broke the silence. Karolina lowered her sunglasses and looked towards her.

"What's up?" She asked.

"Um, it's stupid, but, like, what's your last name?" Nico said to Karolina's confusion.

"Dean, why?" She asked intrigued.

"I'm not sure, I was just thinking about how I don't know it and then I wondered what it was and then I asked." Nico told her. Karolina thought that Nico was sort of flustered asking and she found that adorable. She should try and fluster her more often - if not only for her own amusement.

She now had a dopey smile across her face. "What's yours?" she asked.

"Minoru," Nico replied.

Nico Minoru. Karolina liked that name. "I don't want to sound ignorant, but Japanese?" she tried.

Nico nodded. Karolina felt proud of herself for getting it right on the first try and impressing the girl across from her. "I like that," Karolina told her with a smile.

She wasn't ready for the conversation to end, so, she continued with the first thing she could think of, "So, how'd you end up in LA?"

"College, I went to UCLA," Nico continued.

"Oh, cool, I went to USC. I grew up in LA though."

"When'd you graduate?"

"Two years ago, you?"

"Me too."

Karolina thought that this was her opportunity, she took the chance to take a step closer to Nico physically. She stood from her chair and sat next to Nico on the sofa, closer than necessary. She looked over Nico's shoulder and asked, "What are you reading?"

Karolina felt warm at being this close to her - warmer than she did in the sun.

"Frankenstein," Nico told her. Karolina saw this as an opportunity to see the other girl flustered again.

"That seems... expected. I half thought you would be reading some sort of YA rom-com novel to subvert the goth stereotype," she teased.

"Oh, so I'm a stereotype to you?"

Her attempt backfired quickly and the one flustered was now Karolina. "Oh, no! No! Sorry. I like it, I swear! That's not what I meant. I was kidd--"

"I'm just messing with you," Nico said, a smirk on her lips.

Karolina felt the nervousness leave her body as she sighed and conceded in mock defeat, "That's fair."

"I do have a fair share of them though if that helps. I just felt like I met my quota of them for the month and wanted to seem smarter."

Karolina decided she wasn't going to let the other girl be the only one with a victory and tried again. "For me?" She teased flirtingly.

"I don't know..." Nico said, clearly flustered, bringing a watt smile onto Karolina's face. Karolina shifted her body slightly closer to Nico only to have her pull away.

The other girl stood up abruptly. "Well, it was good talking to you. I'm going to have to get in and get ready or I'm going to be late. I'm going out later on."

"Oh, okay. Yeah. That's okay. Have a nice time tonight." Karolina was disappointed and she was sure it was showing spread across her face. She let Nico walk into her apartment as she sat there stewing over what did she say that sent the girl running. Was it too much? Was she setting herself up for deception once again? Was she reading Nico wrong and she wasn't really into her or women in general?

Karolina kept trying after that. Everytime she would bump into Nico, she would start a conversation. Nico seemed to be into the conversations at first, but as soon as Karolina would think it was going really well, Nico would run away. It wasn't like she was coming on too strong, was she?

She got her answer one night as she drunkenly knocked at Nico's door, bottle of wine in hand. Nico opened the door wearing sweatpants and her hair tied in a bun on her head. Karolina thought she looked cute.

"Hey," Karolina greeted her, a drunk grin on her face.

"Hey," Nico said back.

She took a moment to remember why she had actually knocked at Nico's door, looking down to think, when she saw it in her hands. She raised the wine bottle so Nico could see it.

"Can I borrow a wine opener?"

"Yeah, of course. Come on in. Make yourself at home," Nico told her. Karolina followed Nico into the house and gazed for the first time at the inside of her apartment. It was different than she would have expected. There were no pentagons neither was everything black and leather. It was pretty girly and put together bar the one poster of Rosemary's Baby on the wall. That movie always freaked her out - any horror movie actually.

Karolina soon noticed that Nico wasn't with her anymore. She didn't want to lose her buzz, so, she needed the wine bottle to be opened faster. She looked for Nico for not too long given the small size of the apartment and found her in the kitchen rifling through drawers.

"What's taking so long?" Karolina whined to Nico's back.

"Don't be a baby, I'm looking for it," Nico said as she continued to search. Nico finally shot up, wine opener in hand and she handed it to Karolina.

"Here you go," Nico told her.

Karolina walked closer to her, feeling her presence especially alluring in the small space they were sharing. She grabbed it from Nico's hand - letting it linger a moment longer than necessary.

"Do you wanna drink this with me?" Karolina offered, her speech slightly slurred and her eyes focused on Nico.

"I don't see why not," Nico answered back.

Karolina feigned hurt at this, "I don't see why not? Geez, way to make a girl feel special."

She walked away from Nico then, plopped herself on the couch, and attempted to try and open the bottle under her inebriated state. A mission that proved to be harder than she anticipated as she struggled to even get the wine opener into position. She then felt Nico removing it and the bottle from her hands to open it herself.

Karolina's eyes lingered to the book set on the table to prevent herself from staring at Nico. She was already hyper aware of how close the other girl was sitting to her. She noticed the name of the author on the cover, John Green, and the bookmark clearly indicating it was being read.

"You really weren't kidding," Karolina told Nico.

"About what?" Nico answered as she concentrated at the task at hand, almost done. Karolina grabbed the book from the coffee table and held it so Nico could see. The moment it dawned on Nico what Karolina was showing her, her eyes widened like saucers. The bottle chose that exact moment to give way and pop open - matching the widening of Nico's eyes. Karolina's drunken self found this hysterical.

When she finally calmed down enough to take a full breath, she opened her eyes and saw the other girl staring back at her embarrassed.

"Oh, come on! Don't be embarrassed. It's okay," she comforted.

"How can you know? There's literally nothing that could be embarrassing about you. I mean, look at you."

Karolina took the complement and decided to test the waters slightly to see if the other girl would respond.

"I'm hurt. You underestimate me. I happen to have three Nickelback songs saved on my Spotify," she teased.

Nico pretended to think.

"Yeah, that is too embarrassing. I'm afraid I'm going to need you to leave. There will be no Nickelback fans in this household," Nico joked back. She stood up and grabbed both of Karolina's hands, pulling her off the couch, then sat back down.

"I'm not a fan. I just think three songs are okay," Karolina pouted.

"That's three songs too many. Don't try to sweet talk your way out of this one, buddy."

Nico grabbed the wine bottle from the table and drank it straight from the bottle.

"How am I supposed to drink from it now?"

"You're not. You're supposed to be leaving remember?" Nico dismissed jokingly. Karolina then noticed that Nico was committing to character and decided to take the teasing further.

"What if I don't want to leave?" She waited for a moment after testing the waters, practically hearing Nico's brain working to figure out what to do next.

"Fine, stay all you want, but you're not getting any wine," she finally said and took two more gulps from it.

That gave Karolina the courage to do what she did next. She lunged for the bottle in the other girl's hand - jumping onto the couch and landing extremely close to Nico. When they both realized this, the situation quickly dissolved into a lot less playful. Karolina took the bottle from Nico's hand and took a sip from it. She could feel Nico's eyes on her lips as she did. She put the bottle back on the coffee table - never moving an inch farther from Nico to avoid giving her any idea that Karolina wanted there to be any distance between them. She saw a strand of Nico's hair falling out of place and tucked it behind her ear - allowing her hand to rest on her cheek. Karolina started to caress the soft skin soothingly with her thumb and never did Nico pull away. Her heart was beating out of her chest and she leaned in and finally kissed the girl.

She pulled away quickly to allow Nico to show her if it was okay to continue. To Karolina's extreme joy, Nico leaned back in and kissed her back.

They started off tentative, just lips against lips meeting. Karolina felt she wanted to see if she could take this further and gently bit Nico's bottom lip. Nico's response was positive as Karolina was soon being pushed back on the couch and being straddled  and lips were attacking her neck and fuck-- Karolina hadn't been this turned on in a really long time. Karolina grabbed at Nico's sides possessively under her shirt and this just seemed to fuel Nico to want her more - in turn fueling Karolina.

Both their shirts were soon discarded and Karolina got to see that what she had imagined before under Nico's mesh top was so much better in person. Karolina was laying on her back, Nico's lips on her stomach heading to where Karolina desperately needed them. Nico, however, kissed her body back up and landed back on her mouth. She enjoyed the teasing and wouldn't be one to complain. They could go as fast as Nico needed them to.

As they got more and more heated, Karolina decided to reach for Nico's pants button, but then she couldn't feel the girl over her at all. Karolina's body was still on fire. She rested her forearm over her eyes trying to regain her composure. "Fuck..." she muttered under her breath. Every cell in her body was humming with pleasure.

She lowered her arm to see where Nico had gone. She found her standing in the opposite corner of her living room looking like a scared animal. The smile previously there automatically vanished from Karolina's face.

"Nico? Is everything okay?"

"Why were you drunk tonight?" Nico asked back.

The question threw Karolina. "Um, what?"

"You arrived here drunk. What were you doing before coming here?"

"I went on a bad date," Karolina exhaled as she explained.

"With a girl?"

"Yeah, with a girl."

She could see the storm brewing behind Nico's eyes as she analyzed all of the information she was being handed.

"What was her name?"

"Nico, why are you--"

"Please answer," Nico pleaded. Karolina didn't understand why she needed to know, but if it would give the other girl some piece of mind she would answer.

"Julie," she told her and continued, "Why does it matter? I'm here with you now." Karolina got up from the couch and walked towards Nico, resting a comforting hand on the arms she had crossed around her body. Nico stiffened further and wouldn't meet Karolina's gaze.

"Is everything okay, Nico?"

"Would you mind leaving? I just need to think, I guess. This is a lot. Until you showed up I was pretty sure I was, you know, straight. It's just… a lot. I don't know."

This was the first time that Nico made Karolina's heart ache. She felt for the girl. She understood. Everyone needs time.

"I understand. You need to take your time. I'll go, but know you can talk to me if you need," Karolina told her in her kindest tone.

Karolina walked out of the door with a final, "Bye, Nico," looking back to see the girl still staring down and her arms wrapped around her body.

Karolina hurt as she laid in bed thinking about Nico. She liked the girl. She tried to comfort herself with the superficial knowledge that this wasn't personal, but every time the universe had handed her something good, it seemed it take it away even faster. Experimenting, uninterested, wrong person, wrong timing - it was always something. It just all seemed so unfair to her right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment if you'd like :)


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